artist unknown — via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Adopted son of Brigham Young
Albert Perry Rockwood
1805–1879
Sealed to Brigham Young as a son 25 Jan 1846, Nauvoo temple.
An adoption, not a marriage — an adult sealed into a priesthood lineage running back to Adam. What the law of adoption was.
Nauvoo temple, 1846
Who he was to Brigham Young
Ritual son, adopted FOUR DAYS AFTER Young was sealed to Rockwood's sixteen-year-old daughter Ellen. The bride's father became the husband's son, which makes him simultaneously Young's father-in-law and his child.
How it ended
No rupture on record. Rockwood remained close to Young for life - a general in the Nauvoo Legion, later warden of the Utah penitentiary and a territorial legislator - and died in 1879, two years after Young. His daughter Ellen had died in 1866.
The record
- Born
- 1805
- Died
- 1879
- Adoption sealing
- 25 Jan 1846
- Place
- Nauvoo temple
- Sealed alongside
- Not established here - one of eight couples adopted that day.
- Outcome
- lapsed
Source: Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (2012) pp. 132, 139
Six of the thirty-four men adopted to Brigham Young can be named from the published sources — about 18 per cent. Why the roster is partial.